General/Distribution:
A genus of about 100 species in the tropics and subtropics; 6 species occur in Pakistan, 2 of them cultivated.

Comment/Acknowledgements:
The bristles are considered to be sterile panicle branches. In some species only the tips of the main branches are thus sterilised, and the distinction from Panicum is then somewhat arbitrary.

Annuals or perennials. Leaf-blades flat or folded, sometimes pleated: ligule usually a ciliate rim. Inflorescence a panicle, open or spike-like, the spikelets (or only the terminal) subtended by 1 or more bristles which persist on the axis after the spikelets fall. Spikelets oblong to ovate, ± plano-convex, awnless, the lower glume abaxial; glumes unequal, the lower generally much smaller, ovate from a clasping base; lower floret male or barren, as long as the spikelet, herbaceous; upper floret bisexual, its lemma crustaceous, strongly convex on the back, often rugose, clasping only the margins of the palea. Caryopsis oblong or ellipsoid.